Reply #30

The thing about dieing youngish is you are forever frozen in time in peoples mind. You are never going to be able to voice an opinion on future events or change your mind or just get old and look like you are behind the times etc...

This is why generation after generation find people like Jim Morrison, Edgar Allen Poe or Jimi Hendrix appealing while they can be turned off by Bob Dylan, The Who or the Rolling Stones. (see a lot of comments from the other night) Jim Morrison is never going to find God, make a Gospel Album..etc If you die before you get old, you are a lot safer to admire because as a fan you know they are never going to disappoint you.

A lot of people see the older Jessie Jackson as a carpet bagging self promoter who finds trouble to make a personal appearance, could MLK have ended the same way?

A lot of people see Clinton and Obama as mild conservatives that did little to push back on the conservative agenda and in the end enabled the current American Would JFK or RFK with Vietnam and height of the cold war end up the same way? Think what happen to Johnson.

We won't know for sure because they died. There is something about dieing young around your peak in popularity that helps us remember people as great compared to people that tend to fade away. Had JFK or MLK lived they might not of helped in healing because we might not see them the same way. The same way people remember Jim Morrison forever as the young rebel rocker and see Pete Townshend as a sell out.